How to decode office body language while working at home

In addition, we had all day to discover, collecting small tips from the hike to refill our cups of coffee or the minutes we spent mixing before meetings. Now our work interactions are reduced to a 15-minute peek at each other’s lives on Zoom calls or a salvo of emails without additional context. Trying to read body language through a screen has become another exhausting part of the workday.

“We feel like we have a hand tied behind our backs,” says Traci Brown, a speaker and body language author in Boulder, Colorado.

There are still many ways to read non-verbal cues if you know where to look, says Brown. Start with people’s movements during video calls – a colleague crossing his arms may indicate that he is closed to an idea or has some information that you are not considering, she says. An accelerated or slow blink rate can mean stress. And pay attention to the eyebrows. Eyebrows pointing down towards the middle of the nose indicate anger; eyebrows in a neutral position, but curled in the midpoint of sadness, says Brown.

The approach is not foolproof. That colleague with folded arms may be feeling cold. Consider body language as your tip that you need to probe deeper to find out what’s really going on with someone.

Much of our analysis of other people at work used to happen subconsciously, the result of years of evolution. Now, we must either ignore our previously useful assumptions or we will be confused and mistaken.

“The gestures we create in our entire lives continue, but they don’t have the same meaning as before,” says Jeremy Bailenson, founding director of the Stanford University Virtual Human Interaction Laboratory and professor of communication at the school.

Keep looking. Looking directly into someone’s eyes for more than one to two seconds is interpreted as intimacy or a precursor to conflict, says Dr. Bailenson, triggering our fight or flight response. Now we fix our eyes on Zoom all day. And our images on the screen are generally larger than the typical personal space would provide in the office. Perceived closeness can make us uncomfortable or convince us that a meeting participant has a higher regard than we really are, he says.

Tony Caleca, managing partner of the St. Louis Brown consulting and accounting firm Smith Wallace, was used to his colleague Steve pushing his shoulders forward and sliding up in his chair when he was ready to share during a personal meeting. But in the video the movement seemed more dramatic.

“At first it was a little bit alarming,” says Caleca. “It looked like he was coming towards you.” Mr. Caleca started to remember that the image was just Steve getting ready to speak.

Valeria Klamm, practice growth manager at the same company, was paralyzed in video calls almost daily due to a bad internet connection. When the picture includes a frown, colleagues may receive the wrong message.

“We were concerned that maybe she was offended by something we said,” said Kelly Peery, a colleague who was recently on a phone call where everyone laughed at a shared joke, except for one Mrs. Klamm silent and irritated-looking. It was just another freeze.

“I should just have a sign that says, ‘It’s not you, it’s me,'” says Klamm, 32. “I’m like, damn, how long have I been frozen? I’m here. I was engaged. How long has it been since I have been engaged? “

Written communication can be just as complicated. People get confused with everything from the brevity of emails – nothing gets in the way of an answer that is just a single question mark – so far.

Erica Dhawan, author of the upcoming book “Digital Body Language” and CEO of Cotential, a New York-based consulting firm focused on collaboration, suggests that intrigued clients ask for clarity if they have a close relationship with the sender and only assume good intentions if they don’t. Remember that punctuation marks, like ellipses, are often used differently by generation – older workers may mean nothing to them, while younger workers find them sarcastic. Some may love emojis, while others are baffled by them.

Developing organizational standards can help. Ms. Dhawan had abbreviations for coins from a health insurer that indicated how quickly the sender expected the recipient to respond. Including “4H” in a subject line meant that the note needed a response within four hours.

If something annoying – say, a message that opens with a passive-aggressive “as per my last email” – happens three times, it is probably worth a frank conversation, says Dhawan. You can share examples of virtual interactions that were confusing or worrying. Or ask yourself if changing media can solve the problem quickly.

“A phone call is worth a thousand emails,” she says.

Read the digital room

Avoid tripping over digital body language, with tips from Stanford professor Jeremy Bailenson and author Erica Dhawan:

Add some space: Reduce the size of the Zoom window so that meeting participants do not look uncomfortably close.

Hide your own view: Facing each other throughout the meeting is not a good way to understand others’ tips.

Pay attention to changes: If your boss, usually casual, prefers a more formal language, something may be happening.

Do not exaggerate: If someone sends you a confused or slightly passive-aggressive email, assume good intentions. If communication does not affect your ability to get the job done, it may be good to just let it go. If something happens three times, it’s time for an open chat.

Write to Rachel Feintzeig at [email protected]